


Vow

by biscuitlevitation



Series: Barash Taker Obi AUs [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Darth Vader (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22415803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuitlevitation/pseuds/biscuitlevitation
Summary: In another world, Obi-Wan Kenobi Falls to save his master's life. In penance, he takes the Barash Vow, leaving Anakin to be trained by a bitter, mistrustful Qui-Gon Jinn.Eventually, Darth Vader seeks him out. He does not like what he finds.
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Barash Taker Obi AUs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1613230
Comments: 23
Kudos: 198





	Vow

**Author's Note:**

> So this is 90% me nerding out over obscure Star Wars lore and 10% OBI-WAN KENOBI WAS THE BEST MASTER ANAKIN COULD HAVE ASKED FOR SEND TWEET.
> 
> Some lines you might recognize from the Marvel Darth Vader comics, because that's what inspired this whole mess.

Vader cannot pant—the breathing apparatus in his armor will not allow him to, lest he strain his ruined lungs—but as his master’s lightning rips through the highly conductive metal of his new prison, he desperately wishes to. 

Instead, he stays silent, and allows himself to feel the sadistic delight he had desperately tried to ignore every time before when the kindly old chancellor had let it slip through his shields.

“Where is your lightsaber, Lord Vader?” Sidious cackles. “Use its power! Defend yourself!”

“Lost,” Vader groans, through gritted teeth. “In the flames of Mustafar, during the fight with Qui-Gon.”

“No,” Sidious says, and halts his assault, only to ignite his own crimson saber and point it at Vader’s neck. “That blade belonged to another. A _Jedi._ You are a Sith.”

Vader breathes heavily, the only way he can anymore, and says nothing.

“I realize this has been a… traumatic time for you. But if you touch me with the Force again, I will prove to you that I am every inch the master that Qui-Gon Jinn was not.”

The slave child he had been long ago would have recognized the definition of _master_ that Sidious meant. The Jedi would have retaliated. The ruined Sith, still reeling from the betrayal and death of his wife, simply bows his head. 

And so, as they watch Mas Amedda burn the lightsabers of fallen Jedi and pile their bodies into cargo ships, in order to be dissected or possibly cloned, his newest master explains to him the art of creating a Sith blade — how to master it. How to take it from a Jedi. 

How to make a kyber crystal bleed.

And finally, his master tells him exactly whose lightsaber he should take.

“It’s fitting, isn’t it?” Palpatine asks, baring teeth as yellow as his eyes in a sickly rictus grin. “The twice-repudiated student of your failure of a former master, who once defeated my failure of a former apprentice. By killing him, you will destroy the remnants of Jinn’s legacy, and supplant it with my own.”

“Yes, my master. I will not fail you.” Vader is glad for his voice modulator; he knows this is another of his master’s tests, and he does not want Palpatine to hear him waver. 

“You can find records of Kenobi’s whereabouts at Brighthome, a former Jedi outpost now captured by clone troopers. And, my apprentice…” his grin grows wider, “make sure you leave something behind for Jinn to find.”

Okator VIII is an ideal world for seclusion, from Obi-Wan’s point of view. He knew the only other Barash-taker currently doing penance, Master Kirak Infil’a, might disagree with him, but Obi-Wan did not think a temple, even a deserted one, was necessary in order to wholly submerge himself in the Force. 

The Force provides, and in Obi-Wan’s case it had provided an entire planet. 

Okator VIII was a mid-rim world that had been deserted since the Tionese War, when its bombardment from orbit had left only one survivor, who later served alongside the Jedi watchmen. Obi-Wan had stumbled across his account of the attack during a mission he had taken as a padawan to the Palace of Memnii on Caamas. He had been humbled by the place, a monument to survivors of violence, and thanked his lucky stars that he would never have to live through such horrific loss on such an overwhelming scale.

There were only a few settlements on Okator VIII, so the planet’s natural flora and fauna had recovered relatively quickly, healing over the scars left by the bombardment and subsequent fires. Obi-Wan landed his ship on Pinson ridge, a hill overlooking what had once been the planet’s largest city (if it could even be called that), Derway Township. He would remain there for thirteen years.

Obi-Wan spent the vast majority of his time meditating on his many failures, his darkest thoughts and feelings. His lingering resentment of Master Jinn, for repudiating him in front of the council not once, but twice. His envy of young Anakin, for so easily snaring the attention of a teacher he had spent years trying to prove himself to. His weakness in battle, to the point that he had called on the Dark side in a moment of desperation. His relief to be away from the wary, watchful eyes of the Temple. His pride in being knighted by Master Yoda for defeating the Sith, despite a double repudiation and a near-Fall. His longing for his friends, for the forgiveness and companionship of his former master, for the chance to help Anakin grow into a legendary Jedi knight. 

His attachment. 

In the time he did not dedicate to meditation, the creatures of Okator VIII, left undisturbed for millennia, were eager to learn about this strange new being who floated in the air for hours at a time and stroked their fur when given the chance. Whellays were naturally gentle and obedient, easily domesticated. Their soft pelts, unique whickers, and sweet scents were a great comfort to Obi-Wan in his weaker moments. He had never been particularly good at being alone, for all that he so often ended up that way. 

Even the nightscowls, though considerably less friendly, were content to leave him be more often than not, especially when he broke out his lightsaber to deter the most aggressive of his new neighbors. Aside from katas, it was the most use he got out of it. 

His kyber crystal’s song, once easily lost in the bustle of Coruscant or the missions with Qui-Gon that so frequently went pear-shaped, was always clear and comforting. He spent hours a day cleansing it from his brush with the Darkness, and later, when the taint had vanished and he felt its forgiveness, he would commune with it in the Force. Occasionally, if he was patient, it would respond in its own way. 

He didn’t fully realize just how much of himself he had poured into it until he realized that he could hear its song even while asleep, that he could sense it no matter how far away, that it bolstered him no matter what great feat of the Force he decided to attempt during meditation. (His whellay herd was full of good sports who were all happy to let him practice on them. His current record of the most held up at once was forty-five. His record time suspending nightscowls, who occasionally worked up the courage to raid his camp, was a full day—any longer and it would just be animal cruelty.) 

After more than a decade, the tranquility of his seclusion came to an abrupt and messy end. While overlooking the scar on the landscape that used to be Derway Township, Obi-Wan heard an abrupt scream in the Force, so loud that he fell to the ground and couldn’t help but echo it. For a moment, delirious with psychic pain, he thought he might be having a vision of the bombardment of Okator VIII. But the pain kept building and building and building, and he realized that the voices he heard were familiar. The Force signatures of brothers and sisters, and so many of them, were being snuffed out in rapid succession, at a rate of tens-hundreds-thousands. He fell to his hands and knees and vomited until there was nothing but bile and blood, and let out a ragged sob when he felt the first of the younglings die.

When he came back to himself, still stabbed with fresh agony every time another Jedi’s life blinked out, he found himself surrounded by his whellay herd, all whickering anxiously and pressing close as if to comfort him. A few nightscowls were even peering at him from the shadows of the forest, drawn by his anguish. As he lifted shaking hands to pet his friends, Obi-Wan realized that he was the victim of a genocide.

He called his lightsaber, unable to remember where it was while still suffering the aftershocks of that shriek in the Force, and heard his kyber crystal’s song trembling with shock and grief. He pressed his forehead against the casing he had crafted so long ago and wept.

It was the anxiety of his kyber crystal that roused him from his haze of grief. It had become exceptionally sensitive after Obi-Wan’s brief brush with the Dark Side, and now the darkest presence Obi-Wan had felt since Maul was rapidly approaching.

Obi-Wan took one more shuddering breath and _shoved_ his grief and pain and anger into the Force, grasping for the hard-earned tranquility that had been his goal in taking the Barash Vow. He heard the Dark Side whispering promises in his ear as if the past thirteen years of seclusion had never happened at all. And he was tempted; with no Jedi Order to return to, his vow had become void, _meaningless._

But he would not give the Sith the satisfaction. Obi-Wan knew he was going to die, even if he Fell again. He stood no chance against something so vastly powerful, so steeped in darkness. He could only honor the teachings of his dead and dying people until the very end.

He shooed away his whellay herd, unwilling to risk their safety for the comfort they brought him. He made a similar effort to shoo away the nightscowls, but they were much more contrary. He gave up on that front and settled into a meditative pose, letting his eyes close and his senses open.

Obi-Wan called on the Light, centered himself, and waited for his killer.

Eventually, he felt that overwhelming Force presence breach the atmosphere, and stood to greet it. A sleek black personal ship landed within a few hundred yards of his significantly older, junkier vessel (Obi-Wan had his doubts about whether it could still even escape the planet’s gravitational well). Something just as black, shiny, and ominous descended the landing ramp a few moments later, and for a second Obi-Wan wondered if they were a member of some chitinous insectoid species he was unaware of. But then he noted the cape blowing dramatically in the wind, as well as the humanoid shape, and realized his opponent was wearing a suit of armor.

“Hello, there,” Obi-Wan said, voice so hoarse it even made him wince when he heard it. (Whellays, for all their numerous charms, were not particularly engaging conversationalists.) “I must say, you _do_ know how to make an entrance.” 

The humanoid’s head tilted slightly, as if studying him. They said nothing.

“Not one for casual conversation, are you?” Obi-Wan asked lightly, shaking out his limbs to get his blood pumping. “Are you the one responsible for the destruction of the Order?”

“Partially,” the humanoid said, their butter-smooth basso profundo putting Obi-Wan’s raspy attempt at his past High Coruscanti accent to shame. 

“Then I am correct in assuming that you have come to kill me.”

The creature, leaking blood lust and rage and something unfathomable, simply nodded.

“Well, then,” he remarked, igniting his saber and flipping neatly on top of his opponent’s spacecraft. He settled into his typical Ataru stance. “No use delaying things, is there?”

Kenobi had put up a hell of a fight for someone who looked like a hermit who had never heard of a comb, much less a razor. He was a far cry from Vader’s hazy memories of the aloof, skilled Padawan learner he had met so long ago. Most of his memories of that time were dedicated to Padme, kind and angelic and brave. 

What he remembered best about Kenobi was what he had left in his wake. A cold, bitter husk of a Jedi Master, who saw only the Chosen One and not the child. A set of empty rooms, too-large robes, and massive shoes to fill. The scorn and mistrust of the Temple, the dislike of the Council that obviously vastly preferred his predecessor. A dead Sith, the first slain by a Jedi in a thousand years, cut into so many pieces that it wasn’t immediately clear what species he had been. Even Sidious was fixated on the man to a certain degree, determined to destroy him for so thoroughly defeating his former apprentice.

Vader felt a surge of old resentment, bone-deep and smoldering. Obi-Wan Kenobi had always represented everything he hated about the Jedi Order, the very things he used to so desperately admire as a child. Kenobi was his own personal boogeyman, and now… now he would kill him once and for all.

Vader stalked closer to the prone, bloody form that he’d just thrown through a tree or five. He wanted to see Kenobi’s eyes when he died. He wanted to watch the light leave them.

He reached out to grab him by the throat, intending to strangle the life out of him with his own hands, when recognition and horror flashed through them. Vader realized too late how loudly he had been projecting.

“ _Anakin_?” Kenobi choked. “Little Ani? No, it can’t be—Master Qui-Gon wouldn’t let this happen again—”

“Anakin Skywalker is _dead_. Jinn killed him when he put me in this suit, and I will kill Jinn after I finish killing _you_ ,” Vader growled, wishing that his vocoder would allow him to convey the true depths of his hatred and scorn.

“Oh, Anakin,” Kenobi whispered, lifting a trembling hand to brush against his mask. Vader stilled, wrong-footed in the face of such tenderness from anyone but his wife or his mother, much less an enemy. “I am so sorry you are in so much pain. I… never intended for my actions to hurt you.” His eyes, dry throughout the thorough beating he’d taken from Vader, finally filled with tears. “But, little one… how could you do this? You were the _Chosen One_.”

Vader snapped his neck.

He rose to his feet—odd, he didn’t remember kneeling—and called Kenobi’s lightsaber into his one remaining palm with a satisfying smack. He hesitated a moment, then kicked the corpse hard enough to hear its few intact bones break. Once he started, he couldn’t stop, and by the time he was finished, he was standing in a pile of meat and viscera.

Vader wiped absently at the lenses of his helmet; his vision was curiously blurry, so perhaps some blood had splattered on them. There was also a hitching sensation in his lungs that made him grateful for the regulation of his breathing apparatus. Perhaps he had pushed himself a little too hard; Kenobi was a formidable warrior, to the point that he’d managed to hack off Vader’s left hand. Palpatine would not be pleased that he had let his new armor get damaged.

On his way back to the landing site, Vader had to deal with aggressive local fauna that kept attacking him in waves. He could see now why this planet was uninhabited; fighting off constant attacks by these creatures surely accounted for why Kenobi’s skills with a saber had remained relatively sharp. Hell, even the docile-looking goat-like animals had enough numbers and individual mass to be inconvenient. They appeared to be prey animals, but kept lunging at him long after a species with natural predators would have fled. He slaughtered them all in an attempt to assuage the roiling mass of emotion in his chest, but only succeeded in drenching his cape with their blood.

Once he reached his shuttle, Vader realized that Kenobi had left him one final hardship; _e chu ta_ , the kriffing Jedi had somehow disabled his brand-new craft during their fight with a few well-placed saber slashes. Vader sighed when he realized he was going to have to fly Kenobi’s pile of junk back to Coruscant.

This might take a while.

Sidious was displeased that Vader hadn’t left an identifiable corpse behind for Jinn, and even less pleased that he had allowed Kenobi to take his arm. He only managed to escape the worst of his master’s punishment by reminding him that he would likely need his strength to go about breaking his new kyber crystal.

The entire saber stunk of Kenobi. His Force signature was so tightly entwined with the crystal that he felt almost present in the room, beyond the thick dry crust of his flesh and blood on the soles of Vader's boots.

The kyber felt like it was _mourning_ him. Its grief should have been welcome—it would make it easier to bleed—but Vader just felt the same twisting discomfort that he had after killing the younglings. 

_But this is necessary, as their deaths were_ , Vader thought, and took selfish refuge in his own rage and pain. He honed them into fine points, Darkness so thick around him it was almost tangible, and stabbed them past the crystal’s defenses— 

And the kyber, in one last-ditch effort to save itself, threw him into a vision.

After he resurfaced, Vader sat in silence for hours.

The kyber, having absorbed Kenobi’s own connection to the Unifying Force, had shown him what might have been. It was not a trick or a falsehood; the Force, both sides of it, was ringing with its honesty. In another world, Vader would have been apprenticed to Kenobi. In another world, he would have had a master with all the patience and humor and endless forgiveness that Jinn had never shown him. In another world, his master would have loved him more deeply than he knew a Jedi was even capable of.

In another world, Anakin Skywalker still would have fallen.

The saber, when he ignited it, was the same shade of red as Kenobi’s blood.

Many years later, Vader died in his son’s arms, and an achingly familiar presence was there to meet him. They greeted each other like old friends, and a shared bittersweet joy for the things that could have been and the things that were, and the last thing Anakin registered before they both scattered into the Force like so much stardust was Obi-Wan’s forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> In this AU neither of them learned how to become Force ghosts bc Qui-Gon is petty. I imagine he and Yoda get sick of each other in the afterlife pretty quickly.
> 
> I'm tempted to write a much longer AU with Barash Obi going around being badass and angsty and having people become as smitten with him as I am. Maybe one where he comes back a few years earlier to keep things from going quite so pear-shaped, though we all know how much Anakin likes pears. It's a toss-up between him coming back during Attack of the Clones (which might end up being either Obikin or Jangobi), or him coming back during The Clone Wars (which would result in various clones/Obi bc fight me). Maybe I'll write both!! God knows I could stand to write something a little lighter, and Obi-Wan deserves a happy ending, even if it's only in fanfiction.


End file.
